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How to live-tweet from an event

Yesterday, the “Centrale de la Mobilité” of Luxembourg tweeted about the ‘The Government Summit‘ from Dubai. The ‘Mobiliéitszentral’ is a public infrastructure linked to the Luxembourgish Ministry of Development and Infrastructure. Basically: they are the guys responsible for public transport in Luxemburg. Yesterday, suddenly, they got active on Twitter, tweeting live from an award-ceremony from Dubai. Using this example, I want to give a few tips on how you should live tweet from an event.

Should you live-tweet?

If you have good community management procedures in place, you should have an idea what your community cares about. Before launching a live-tweet, ask yourself if your followers care about the event. In the example at hand, the ‘Mobilitéitszentral’ usually tweets about delays in the public transport service. While they definitely should tweet about the award they won yesterday, I doubt that most of their followers want to hear about the political leadership of Dubai. You will publish a lot more posts than usual in a short period of time – you don’t want to annoy your followers with messages that are irrelevant to them!

Prepare!

Prepare your followers that a live-tweeting session is happening: talk about the upcoming event, why it is important to you and why it should be important to your followers. Create a hashtag for the event and inform your followers which hashtag you will use when live tweeting. Make sure to prepare yourself: set up your Tweetdeck dashboard to follow the conversation, charge your laptop and smartphone, and set up your Twitter wall beforehand!

Set the stage before you start tweeting and make your followers care about the big day!

Post exclusive content

You are at an event where most of your followers are not – that’s why you tweet live! Post backstage photos, humorous videos and exclusive news. Make sure to create additional benefits for your followers – this is especially important if the event is streamed online or broadcast on TV.

Create additional benefits for your followers!

Please, engage!

Don’t even start considering live-tweeting if you are unwilling to engage with your community! Retweet interesting opinions, answer mentions, favorite replies, reply tweets by giving your point of view. Social media is a about connecting with your audience, if you refuse to answer comments, don’t create an account on Twitter! You might not be able to answer to all mentions right away so make sure you go back later and respond.

Be part of the conversation!

After the live-tweet is before the live-tweet

The event might be over, but your community management has to continue! Make sure to answer all open questions and reply to comments after the event. Thank your followers for their interest! During the live-tweet, you should have created a twitter list with all the users you have interacted with so you can mention them in future conversations. A live-tweet is a good opportunity to build a relationship with your followers, ensure that the dialogue continues after the main event.

Continue building a relationship with your followers!

Live-tweeting is not an exact science, so please experiment. These rules however should give your an initial idea what to expect when live-tweeting from an event. Share them if you think they are helpful!

Jerry Weyer

Jerry Weyer co-founded Clement & Weyer Digital Communication Consultants in 2014 and consults European institutions in Luxembourg on social media management. He studied European law at Université Robert Schuman in Strasbourg and at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a founding member of Pirate Party Luxembourg and former Co-Chairman of the Pirate Parties International (PPI).